


Where the Heart Is: Baby Hale Bonus Chapters

by seekeronthepath



Series: Baby Hale [2]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Adoption, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Kid Fic, Not very canon, Pack Dynamics, Pack Family, Pack Mother Stiles Stilinski, Sheriff Stilinski Finds Out, Sheriff Stilinski's Name is John, after season 2, tags added as we go
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-02-14
Updated: 2015-04-10
Packaged: 2018-03-12 08:23:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 7,202
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3349907
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/seekeronthepath/pseuds/seekeronthepath
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A single (werewolf) mother looking for a new family for her (werewolf) daughter comes to Beacon Hills and begs Derek to take her in. How will the pack change to accommodate their newest (and tiniest) member?</p><p>My story 'Baby Hale' is entirely from Derek's perspective; this fic explores the experiences of the rest of the pack as they become Arian's new family.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Telling the Sheriff

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This chapter, in which Stiles tells the Sheriff about werewolves, takes place after chapter 4 of 'Baby Hale'.

"So, uh, Dad," Stiles said, bouncing his leg up and down. "I, uh, there's some things I haven't...um, maybe been entirely truthful about?"

John sighed. He'd known for months that Stiles was hiding something; the kid wasn't subtle. "Am I taking this as evidence that you're about to _be_ truthful?"

Stiles rubbed the back of his neck. "...yeah. But, uh," he looked John up and down, "you've put your gun away, right? Like, you're not carrying weapons right now?"

That wasn't promising. Then again, the string of crime scenes Stiles had been found at wasn't either. "No, Stiles, I'm not."

Stiles nodded, "Right, good, awesome. And, uh...Scott kind of needs to sit in on this conversation, is that okay?"

John was utterly unsurprised that Scott was involved - that pair had been dragging each other into trouble for years. Why did he need to be there for the explanation though? "Get on with it, Stiles."

"Right, yeah, getting on with it." He nodded some more, then yelled, "Scott, get down here!"

John hadn't even known Scott was in the house.

"So, uh, remember, like nine months ago, when Laura Hale was found, and Scotty got lost in the woods?" John nodded slowly. This went back that far? Stiles took a deep breath, then blurted out, "Scott got bit by a werewolf that night."

John raised his eyebrows, and sighed. "Stiles..." He didn't get any further though, because Scott's face...morphed, shifting into something barely recognizable, snarling, angry-looking. "Shit!"

The...werewolf?...raised a clawed hand, and waved. "Still me, Sheriff," it said in Scott's voice, and slowly, the features returned to something familiar.

"Shit." John scrubbed a hand over his face. "Werewolves?"

"Werewolves." Stiles nodded solemnly. "Scott got bit by crazy werewolf Peter Hale, who was responsible for all the animal killings back then; I figured it out 'cause I'm awesome, and between me and not-crazy werewolf _Derek_ Hale, we managed to sort him out so he wasn't going to kill anybody, but crazy Peter was still killing people, and trying to use his Alpha mojo to make _Scott_ kill people, and the Argents figured out he was a werewolf, and they were hunting him and Derek 'cause they thought Derek might be the Alpha, which we did too for a while, hence the arrest thing, which, seriously, Derek's mostly a decent guy, and then Peter threatened me and bit Lydia, except she didn't turn and we don't know why, and eventually we killed Peter, or, well, Derek killed Peter, so then Derek was the Alpha..."

 

John held up a hand. "Alpha? Also, how are the Argents involved?" Really, he was barely tracking the story, but if he interrupted the first time Stiles told it, he was going to forget things.

Stiles was nervously drumming his fingers on the tabletop. "Oh, right. So, werewolves are pack animals, the head of a pack is called an Alpha, they have special powers. They heal faster; they're stronger, faster, their senses are better; werewolves heal slower from wounds from an Alpha; and they have this voice thing which means they can command their pack - it's a kind of compulsion. Usually, the one who kills the Alpha becomes the next Alpha, although in more peaceful circumstances it can be inherited. Peter was able to heal properly because he killed Laura, the previous Alpha, and got her Alpha powers." Passing power through murder wasn't promising. "The Argents are a family of werewolf hunters."

"What?" John frowned. "We are talking Allison's family here?"

Scott nodded morosely. "Yeah. She didn't know at first."

Stiles snorted. "It was _very_ Romeo and Juliet. Anyway, they hunt werewolves. They're only meant to kill werewolves that have hurt humans, but Crazy Kate and Gerard and Allison's mum weren't so discriminating." He frowned. "Or should that be they were _more_ discriminating, seeing as this whole mess got started because werewolf hunters are a bunch of racist assholes."

"Stiles," John said warningly.

"No, really," Stiles explained. "The Hale House Fire? That was Crazy Kate Argent, just because they were werewolves."

John drew in a sharp breath. "There were _kids_ in that house!"

Stiles nodded. "Yes, there were. There were children, there were humans, and there were absolutely no killers in that house. There was _no_ reason for the fire except that Kate hated werewolves." Stiles' face was harder than John had ever seen it. "Killing her is one of the few things I _don't_ hate Peter for."

"Peter Hale killed Kate Argent?" John clarified. "And bit Scott and Lydia, and were trying to control them, and then Derek killed him."

Stiles scrunched his face up. "Really, all of us involved at the time helped kill him, but Derek gave the final blow. There were maybe some Molotov cocktails involved? Fire's really bad for werewolves."

"Jesus." Molotov cocktails. His son was talking casually about killing a serial murderer with Molotov cocktails. Because _werewolves_.

 

"So, Derek became the Alpha..." he prompted.

"Right!" Stiles bit his lip. "Scott basically wanted to forget the werewolf thing, so we went our separate ways for a while, but Jackson had figured out - Scotty wasn't subtle with the sudden lacrosse awesomeness - and he asked for the bite, and pack is a _really_ big deal for werewolves, so Derek gave it to him, but it didn't take, which really, I know it's happened twice in this story, but it's actually _incredibly_ rare, like less than a tenth of a percent of people don't either turn or die when they're bitten..."

"Stiles!" Scott interrupted him in a half-whisper that did absolutely nothing to make him unobtrusive. "I'm pretty sure you said you wanted to de-emphasise the dying."

"Oh, uh, yeah." Stiles tapped a rhythm on the table for a moment before he went on. "Anyway, then Derek offered the bite to Isaac, Erica, and Boyd,"

"Erica Reyes and Vernon Boyd?" John remembered those two. He remembered their frantic parents better. "The ones who went missing?"

Stiles nodded. "Yeah, but that comes later. Anyway, they all turned fine, but by that point, the Argents had called in reinforcements and the next batch of murders had started." He paused, and John took a moment to parse it out.

"The Daehler murders? They weren't at all similar to the, uh, 'animal attacks' you said Peter was responsible for." The department was still reeling from them. If Stiles could have prevented those deaths by telling him sooner...

"Yeah, they weren't a werewolf. They were a kanima." Seeing John's impatient look, Stiles rushed to explain himself. "It turns out that if you get bit but you have, like, mega-issues, in really, really rare cases, you turn into a justice/vengeance-obsessed lizard-monster thing instead. And before you ask, no, Matt wasn't bitten. When a person's in kanima form, they aren't actually _conscious_ , and they need a 'master' to direct them. Matt used the kanima as a weapon to kill all those people; he's still responsible. So we all figured out something was hinky with the murders pretty quick, and eventually that it was a kanima - through some unnecessarily close encounters, I have to say - but we didn't know who, and until we knew who, we couldn't fix it or stop it, since kanimas seriously outweigh werewolves in the combat stakes."

John turned things over in his mind...bitten, but not a werewolf..."Jackson or Lydia?" he asked.

Stiles pointed finger-guns at him. "Ten points to you! We didn't know, and some _really_ sketchy plans were floated, on both sides, really - at that point Scott and I and Derek and his pack were kind of separate sides - before we managed to establish that it was Jackson. Which, by the way, is the reason for the police van/restraining order incident, and also the appearance at the Jungle crime-scene...possibly some other things. There was a while where we really thought it was Lydia - what with the lost time and the hallucinations, it was looking really suspicious, but it turns out that was Peter's fault."

 

John frowned. "But Peter's dead."

"Yeeeeaaaah," Stiles drawled. "He's alive again now."

John put his head in his hands.

"On the upside," Stiles said hopefully, "he's less insane since he was resurrected?"

"He was resurrected," John said flatly. "By Lydia?"

Stiles' voice was slightly manic. "As it turns out, in special circumstances, an Alpha can get resurrected! Using a pack member and the blood of the Alpha that killed them, and possibly also related to whatever Lydia actually _is_ that means she didn't turn, we still aren't sure, and Peter's not been particularly forthcoming on the subject."

"You speak to him regularly?" John said disbelievingly.

"Oh, he's pack now." Stiles' voice still had that manic edge, and John groaned. "Yeah, Scotty and I weren't happy about that either. Lydia refuses to be in the same room as him ninety percent of the time. But he's not _currently_ insane, just a manipulative creeper; he's the only adult from a born wolf family we know (except Derek, but Derek wasn't much of a scholar before the fire, so he doesn't have the same knowledge base Peter does); and he's Derek's only living family, so...we put up with him."

"That..." John shook his head. "Son, I'm not even going to pretend that's not concerning."

"I _completely agree_ with you, Dad, I am _concerned,"_ Stiles said, waving his arms in the air. "But half the shit we got into was because no-one talked to anyone else, and half the reason we got out of it is because we actually _co-operated_ once in a blue moon - I wonder if that's a thing, I should ask Deaton - so collecting everyone into one pack? I'm gonna vote for that even if it _does_ include Creeper Peter."

Scott sat forward, a serious look on his face. "Sir, we are very aware that Peter might be a problem in future, but it's, uh...you know that saying about keeping your enemies close?"

John raised an eyebrow. "That got anything to do with you spending more time with Allison these days? Because if the Argents are hunters..."

Scott blushed, and Stiles cackled. "Oh, man, you haven't even heard half of the stuff the _Argents_ got up to. Like, back when things got started, Chris shot Scott with a crossbow, and Kate shot Derek and I nearly had to cut his arm off," _What?_ "and Mrs Argent set up this poisoned vaporiser thing to like, give Scott basically a lethal werewolf asthma attack, and when Gerard got here there was this feral Omega and he cut the guy in _half_ , and then he and Allison captured Erica and Boyd and tortured them for a couple of weeks, and Gerard found me and got his guys to beat me up - yeah," Stiles must have noticed the outrage on John's face, "that wasn't the other lacrosse team - and Gerard took over the kanima after Matt got sorted out, and then he and Scott forced Derek to bite him to cure his cancer, only it didn't work 'cause Scott double-crossed him and fed him mountain ash pills so the bite wouldn't take, so _he_ died, and Mrs Argent had killed herself because Derek bit her accidentally when he was trying to save Scott's life, and Chris practically disowned his entire family after the entire mess, so we've more or less forgiven him, but, yanno..."

John was reeling from the recital. "All this happened and I didn't know?" How unobservant was he? How uninvolved in his son's life? "Do I need to have a talk with Chris?"

Scott shrugged. "Werewolves heal fast, so usually the evidence didn't last long. And pretty much everyone involved was trying to _keep_  it secret _,_ not expose everything." 

"And don't worry about Chris." Stiles grinned. "We've come to an...agreement."

 

John took a deep breath. "I have a question. Actually, I have a _lot_ of questions. But they can wait, more or less." His mind was racing, trying to connect the dots between all the little mysteries that had been bothering him for the last year. Some mysteries never got solved, he knew that, and he'd been resigned to it, but this sounded like it would explain an awful lot of them. "Why tell me now?"

Scott turned towards Stiles, obviously curious. So he hadn't been involved in the decision then.

"Well," Stiles said slowly. "The reasons for secrecy haven't really gone away - keeping werewolves as secret as possible is kind of the done thing, and if you aren't in the know, you don't get targeted, and I really, really didn't want you to get hurt because you were involved," and there was something incredibly wrong with that, that Stiles seemed to think it was his job to protect _John_ , "but the sort of stuff that's showing up these days is...less focused? Also less crazy. But, this last month or two...you probably would have been as safe knowing as not knowing. And, well, the pack's a _pack_ now. I'm not just hanging out with Scott. All of us are getting together at the Hale House on a regular basis now, and I _know_ that looks suspicious if you don't know about werewolves. Basically everything about Derek since he moved back to Beacon Hills looks suspicious until you know about werewolves - he's actually a really good guy, even he has _majorly_ messed up in the past, and he's trying, you know? So, now that the pack's acting like a pack, and I'm spending more time with them, I wanted to stop lying about where I was."

"Isn't pack a werewolf thing?" John asked, confused. "You're not a werewolf are you? I assume Scott wouldn't have done the demonstration if you were."

"No," Stiles shook his head emphatically. "Peter offered, but no. And pack...it's a werewolf thing, but it kind of includes, well, family, I guess. I don't really understand the instincts, since I don't have them."

Scott shrugged. "It's like...as soon as I turned, I knew Stiles was pack, for me." John nodded. Those two had been inseparable since they were eight, he could understand that feeding into new 'instincts'. "Since I've gotten involved with the rest of the pack, it's...the way I feel about Isaac, for example, it's kind of like the friendship I had with Stiles already, except we didn't have to...build it up? in the same way."

Stiles was looking away. If Scott had friends in the pack almost as close as Stiles, and a relationship with Allison, along with all of this drama...that had probably strained things.

"The others weren't friends with Stiles before, but...he acts like pack. He spends enough time with us that he smells like pack," okay, _that_ was weird, "and I've always treated him like pack, and he's been here since the beginning, and Derek includes him in things, and he's saved all of our lives at least once, so..." he shrugged again.

"Pack's based on a family structure," Stiles explained. "Wolfiness is inheritable, but it's a dominant trait, so not all werewolf kids are actually werewolves. And not all wolves mate with other werewolves. Most packs have some human members."

"Mates?" Scott was looking dreamy at the word, but John really didn't like where that was going.

"It's like getting married, but as far as your wolfy instincts are concerned. Comes after a courting period, similar to dating, and the pair can break up, but it's pretty unusual. Rarer than divorce, at least. Werewolves are instinctively fairly loyal and monogamous, usually." John would be wondering how Stiles knew all this, but the kid had always loved knowing things. He'd probably been badgering Hale for months with all these questions.

 

"You know, that all explains why you were _willing_ to tell me, but not why you actually told me _now_. None of those reasons were time-sensitive, unless you want to teach me stuff in preparation for some new threat." Stiles had _sounded_ pretty relaxed - but was he just too used to this to get freaked out anymore? Surely not. Stiles had never been one for subtle reactions to things.

"Uh..." Stiles had that 'deer in the headlights' look he got sometimes. "You're not wrong, but, uh, can I just call Derek, real quick? I don't know if I'm meant to tell anyone this yet?"

He got up and went into the kitchen, obviously not waiting for a particular answer, but..."Does Hale often tell Stiles things before everyone else?" John asked Scott quietly.

"Usually, it's more like Stiles tells _Derek_ things before Derek tells anyone else." Scott shrugged. "He's really good at figuring stuff out, so he's basically the pack researcher." He frowned. "And I think Derek asks him for advice, sometimes. 'Cause he's human, he's kind of...off to the side of the normal hierarchies, so it's not as awkward."

At that moment, Stiles came back in. "Derek gave the ok 'cause everyone else is going to hear this at the pack meeting tonight, but don't spread this around, okay Scotty?"

Scott nodded.

"So, I asked Derek if it was okay to tell you today because I expect that I'm about to start spending a lot more time at the Hale house, and the Scott excuse would get a bit ridiculous, so you needed to understand that Derek doesn't actually live up to his reputation, which is basically impossible to explain without explain the rest of it." Stiles was almost bouncing up and down with whatever news he was waiting to share.

John decided to indulge him. "And why will you be spending more time at the Hale house?"

Stiles grinned. "Because Derek's having a baby!"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I actual wrote most of this chapter in my head thinking I wasn't going to publish it, simply because I needed to figure out the Sheriff's initial reactions before he talked to Derek. But a bunch of you commented that you were looking forward to the big reveal, so I figured I'd write it up properly. 
> 
> I figure this chapter will reveal pretty conclusive my knowledge (or lack thereof) of Teen Wolf canon. I can get away with the story being disjointed because that's pretty much how Stiles would tell things, but...I pretty much picked up all of this from fanfic. How'd I do?
> 
> Your kudos and comments, as always, are incredibly rewarding, so let me know what you think.


	2. Walking Away

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> As she drives home, Amy thinks about her daughter's new pack. 
> 
> Takes place after chapter 6 of 'Baby Hale', and more or less simultaneous with chapter 7.

The car felt bigger now.

Amy had given the booster seat, the baby basket, the suitcase of clothes and blankets and toys, the diaper bag...all of Arian's things, she'd given to the Hales. Her own clothes took up a single suitcase in the trunk, next to the blanket and pillow she used when she had to sleep in the car. The car felt bigger now, empty of all signs of Arian and her life, with only the fading scent left behind. Now that she didn't need to visit with the local packs, Amy could probably get home in less than a week. Would the car have lost Arian's scent by then?

She turned the radio on. She could listen to music that she liked now, music that had woken Arian up, that had made her fuss and cry. It seemed far away, the music. The car felt quiet, without Arian's crying and babbling and tiny heartbeat. Amy didn't like the silence.

"Come on, girl, this is what you wanted, right?" she said to herself as she drove down the long, long highway. "You didn't have space for a baby, you didn't have time for a baby."

 _But she was mine_ , she thought. She didn't say it aloud.

"You know you couldn't have looked after her." She drummed her fingers on the steering wheel. She knew. It didn't really help.

\-------

"Hi, Maddy," she said. Maddy had promised to keep an eye on her tiny studio apartment while she was travelling. She should know Amy was coming home.

"Amy! It's good to hear from you," came the voice over the phone. Maddy was such an enthusiastic person. "How goes the Great California Roadtrip?"

They'd pretended it was anything but what it really was, the two of them. "I found him, Maddy."

"Wait, seriously? You actually found the bastard? Shit, I thought..."

Amy sighed. "He's a good guy, Maddy." She'd told her the dad had skipped town and she was going looking for him. It was close enough to the truth. "He didn't know."

"So...are you staying with him?" Maddy sounded tentative, balanced on the edge of disappointment. "Is this goodbye?"

"This is me telling you I'm coming home." Home to her tiny (empty) studio apartment, to her (not-pack) friends, to job-hunting and student debt and family graves. She had a good life, she did. She was happy. She would be happy.

Maddy squealed. "Oh my God, finally! Do I get to meet him? Is he cute? How is he with Arian? Are you going to get a new place?"

"Maddy...he's not coming. _I'm_ coming home. Just me." It hurt like she knew it would hurt. She wasn't interested in Derek. Honestly, the way he'd looked at Stiles, she didn't think she'd have had a chance even if she were. She wasn't part of his pack. But she'd been alone so long, and his pack _was_ Pack. Arian's pack, now.

Maddy made a small, hurt noise. "Amy...are you okay?"

She sighed and smiled sadly. "I'll be alright, Maddy. And Derek will be good to Arian. She's got a proper family now, that can look after her. And I can...keep going."

There was silence for a long moment. There wasn't much that could be said to that. "When will you get here?" Maddy finally asked.

Amy shrugged, even though Maddy couldn't see it. "A few days? Five at most." She was sleeping long hours now, catching up on months of interrupted nights.

"I guess I'll see you then. Drive safe."

Amy smiled. "Bye, Maddy."

\-------

The arrogant beta, Jackson, had pulled her aside just before she left. "Make sure she knows you wanted her," he had muttered. It was the most genuine she'd heard him in the whole week he'd been there.

She sat in a coffee shop in some little town on the way, taking a break from hours on the road. She dug paper and pen out of her bag.

 

 _Dear Arian_ , she wrote.

_I don't know how much you've heard about me. Or about how your father adopted you. But someone told me once that you should know you were wanted, so...here goes._

_My family, my pack, were killed by hunters when I was in college. I came home to an empty house that smelled of wolfsbane and blood. The cleaners had done their best, but the smell is hard to erase. I hope you never find out how much. I didn't want anything that reminded me of them, so I sold the house and their things, and I bought a tiny apartment, and let myself become Omega._

_Some Omegas are angry, or feral, but I was born a wolf and my control was good, so I was just sad. And lonely. But having a pack...I think it would have hurt more._

_The house was only half paid off, and my family wasn't rich, so I didn't have much saved once I bought the new place. I worked at a bookshop, but it didn't pay well, and I had a lot of student debt to pay off._

 

_I didn't really know your biological father. He was a guy I met at a club. He was handsome, and kind, and considerate, even if he was sarcastic as hell. _He was human, brown hair, brown eyes, tall, stronger than he looked. His smile had mischief in it._ We went our separate ways after, and I don't remember his name. _

_I didn't realise I was pregnant for almost three months. Looking back, I can't figure out how. It's so obvious in hindsight. When I did, I panicked. I'd been raised by a whole pack: my mother and father, three grandparents, two pairs of uncles and aunts. You weren't going to have that, and I didn't know what to do. I looked around my apartment and...there was no room for a baby there, and certainly not for the child you were going to grow into. And once I started thinking about that, I started thinking about all the things you would need, and I realised that I couldn't afford that. There was about a month there where it all felt like an impossible dilemma._

_I didn't really have a support system. I was coping, as an omega, but if you were a wolf I would have to be pack for you. I'd have to be your Alpha, in a lot of ways. I knew I wouldn't be able to do it._

_When I was about six months pregnant, my friend Maddy sat me down and had a talk with me. She asked me what I was going to do. How I was going to look after you. If I was planning to put you up for adoption._

_To be honest, I'd forgotten about adoption. My cousin was adopted, so I knew how it worked for wolves, but I hadn't considered the possibility. Once I did, it started to feel like the obvious solution. I didn't have a pack for you. I wasn't emotionally ready to join a pack, and I wasn't capable of being pack for you by myself. I wasn't financially able to support you. (They say money can't buy happiness, but it's hard to be happy when you're starving.) And I had never planned on being a mother. As soon as I knew you existed, I wanted to do my best by you, and finding you a better family looked like the best think I could give you._

 

_A month after you were born, I packed up the car and started visiting wolf packs. I must have met a dozen or more. I hope you never think I didn't care about what happened to you: I tried so hard to find a family that would love you. It was three months before I met the Hale Pack. They were all so young, at the time. Your father was only my age. And they'd been through some tough times - the first time I mentioned adopting you, Derek said flat-out that their territory was too dangerous._

_I guess you're wondering why I let you be adopted somewhere you wouldn't be safe. The thing is, Derek said it was dangerous, but he'd kept his pack alive. The Hale Pack was still strong, thriving. A family that could survive that...surely they could survive anything else. They loved you, too. Stiles and Scott and Boyd doted on you while I was there, and Isaac would watch you for an hour or more, just playing and babbling. Derek avoided you for the first day, but he avoided you the way I had at first - because he knew he'd fall in love with you if he got too close._

_When I asked him to adopt you, he said no, and he ran. I don't know what changed his mind, but two days later he came to me and said yes. The adoption ceremony was beautiful. And I could see already that you would have a father, and two grandparents (and Peter, I suppose), and three pairs of aunts and uncles, and Isaac, and Stiles. You would have a pack who loved you, and looked after you, and kept you safe._

_I love you, Arian. I'm sorry I couldn't be your mother. May the bright lady watch over you,_

_Amy._

 

She found an envelope, addressed it to 'Arian Hale (Age Eighteen), and sealed the letter in. Maybe Derek would give it to her sooner, if Arian needed it. But if she got to be eighteen without having seen it, at least she'd know that Amy loved her.

\------------

A couple of days into her trip, she got an email from Stiles. He'd badgered her until she'd given up her contact details, saying ' _Sourwolf hates using his words, if you want to hear_ anything _about Arian you're gonna hear it from me_.'

The email nattered on about how Derek was hiding from half the pack right now, so they'd ended up hanging out at Stiles' house, and he'd gotten Scott to help him get his baby stuff down from the attic, and Lydia had seen it and decided they needed to have a baby shower, which Derek was going to _hate_ , so Stiles had made a list of everything Derek needed and told everyone to look through _their_ attics, and _then_ he'd valiantly gone shopping with Lydia so she didn't get ridiculously expensive things that a werewolf kid would break in half a second, and _then_ he'd got everyone to handle all the new stuff so that it would smell like pack instead of dust and strangers, and he was going over to the Hale House once a day to see if Derek was non-growly enough for them t actually give him the stuff, but it looked like that might take a little while. He must have been taking photos on his phone when he visited, because he attached a picture of Arian, sleeping in Derek's arms.

 _"Let me know if you need me to not talk to you about Arian, okay?'"_ he wrote at the end of the email. " _If you want to, like, try and forget about Arian for a while, I'm totally cool with that. Or, you know, monthly updates or something, instead of me just emailing you whenever. Whatever you need."_

 

She thought about that email for a whole day before she replied. She'd liked Stiles. He was loud, and sarcastic, and maybe a bit obnoxious, but it was so obvious how much he cared about the pack. He cared about the pack so much he'd made a place in it all by himself. He'd made a place as the _Alpha Mate_ just by looking after everyone. He was a strange mix of insightful and oblivious, really. He understood everyone else so well, except when it came to how they felt about him. It was blindingly clear that they all loved him, at least to her. He always seemed surprised when they showed it, though.

Did she want to hear from him? Part of her wanted a clean break, the way she'd done with her family, so she could get the hurting over and done with. Wouldn't it be terrible, hearing about her daughter over and over again, but never having her?

But part of her thought that through Stiles' emails she _could_ have Arian, just a little bit. She wasn't her mother anymore. But maybe she didn't have to _not_ be her mother either. Maybe Stiles could write his emails, and she could write her letters, and Arian could have her pack, and it would be all right.

The next morning, she sent an email to Stiles:

_Thanks. Let me know how it goes._

_Amy._

\----------

She could _feel_ her wolf unwind as she crossed the border of her territory. She'd forgotten how hard it was to leave - well, not forgotten, but she'd pushed it to the back of her mind. Leaving for college had been okay because her family was holding her place here, but leaving it when she was an omega? It felt like leaving her apartment unlocked with the windows open. She was going to have to take a day to run the borders, soon.

 

Maddy met her at the flat. "Hi Amy! I brought some groceries so you wouldn't have to shop right away, I figured you'd want to take a break, settle in."

Amy smiled at her gratefully. "Thanks, Maddy. You're not wrong."

Maddy kept on talking as they brought in Amy's luggage and the groceries. "I've been coming by to dust and vacuum once a week - you owe me for that, by the way, your furniture is _awkward_ to vacuum around."

Amy could tell. The apartment didn't smell lived in, but itdidn't smell abandoned, either. Maddy's scent from the last few months was almost as strong as hers, it had faded so much. She trailed silently behind Maddy as they unpacked the groceries.

When everything was put away, Maddy looked at her seriously. "Do you want to talk about it, or do you want to decompress?" she asked, a sympathetic look on her face. "Because I am up for ice cream and a movie and talking about guys who fuck you and leave and then turn out to be really nice and adopt the kid you kind of wanted but also really didn't."

Maddy had been there for a lot of hormone-induced weeping during the pregnancy. "I think I just want to sleep in my own bed for a night," Amy said softly. "But...thanks. Raincheck?"

Maddy smiled brightly. "Raincheck is a-okay by me. I'll leave you to it."

 

Amy sighed as Maddy left. Time to unpack. To shift from Omega Amy Jones, seeking a pack to adopt her daughter, to Amy Jones, single woman in her twenties, looking for a job. She liked her life, she thought, as she started up the washing machine. It suited her. But it was...nice...to be a wolf for a while.

She made the bed with the blanket and pillow she'd kept in the car. _They_ , at least, smelled like her. _Dinner can wait_ , she thought, and flopped down on the bed. Right now she was just going to...sleep, for a while, in a bed that smelled like her, in her apartment, in her territory, in her life. _This much, I can have_ , she thought.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is more or less the last we'll see of Amy. (She may make a reappearance through emails or at Arian's birthday; I haven't decided yet.) I hope you liked her, and I hope she provided some interesting perspectives on the Hale Pack.
> 
> Your kudos and comments are always a delight to receive, so let me know what you think.


	3. Fairy-tales for Wolves: How the First Werewolf was Made

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Werewolves have their own folklore, their own children's tales. When Derek was a child, his family told him these stories, and now he tells them to Arian. This is the tale of the first werewolf: how she was raised a wolf, learned to be a human, and became a mixture of both. 
> 
> Derek tells this story to Arian in chapter 7 of Baby Hale, although only a few lines are actually quoted there.

Once there was a girl, younger than you, whose parents left her in the woods because they were poor and she was hungry and they didn't love her enough to keep her. A wolf pack found her, and nursed her and raised her and taught her to hunt. She lived with them until all the wolves nursed by her den-mother had died, and their cubs ruled the pack.

One day they came to her, and said, "Your nose is weak; your teeth are blunt; you have no claws to hunt with, or fur to keep you warm. You are not a wolf, and you are not pack."

She was older than you, but younger than me, and she was alone.

 

She found herself a new territory, that wolves did not want because there were too many humans. But it is hard to hunt for a wolf alone, and harder for one such as her, and the hunters left traps that caught prey for her. She was hungry, but she survived, and when she was lonely, she spoke to the moon in the language of wolves.

She watched the hunters closely, to see where they laid their traps, and from them she learned three things:

First, she learned that she was like them. Their noses were weak; their teeth were blunt; they had no claws to hunt with, or fur to keep them warm. "Once I was human," she said to the moon, "and then I was a wolf. Now I am neither."

Second, she learned that humans ate things other than meat: leaves and seeds and fruits. She watched the hunters closely, and copied what they ate, and was sometimes sick, but rarely hungry. "Once I hunted deer with my pack," she said to the moon. "Now I hunt plants and fresh-killed corpses."

Third, she learned that humans used hands and tools where wolves used mouth and teeth. She stole a knife and called it Claw, and with it cut the skins from her prey. She stole rope from the traps, and bound the skins to herself as autumn became colder. "Once I was warmed by the fur of my pack," she said to the moon. "Now I wear the skins of the dead."

 

One day, a hunter saw her as she watched him. He approached her, and she fled, but he came to the forest more often after that.

The next time he saw her, he approached again. She could not smell his intent, or hear his heartbeat, but he carried neither knife nor bow, and he smiled without teeth, and she did not run. He spoke, but she did not understand him. She spoke, and he was confused. He offered her food she had seen but not eaten - bread, and cheese - and she ate some, and he ate some, and when he left he was still smiling. "I don't know why he hunts me," she said to the moon, "but I think it is not to kill me."

The third time he saw her, he offered clothes as well as food. A tunic, like his, that would cover her arms and torso, that would keep her warm, and did not smell of death. She ate, and he ate, and she took it, and he went away smiling. "I don't understand him," she said to the moon, "but I think he is being kind."

The fourth time he saw her, she was wounded. She had fallen on rocks, and her leg was broken. She had no pack to guard her, to clean the wood, to bring her food or water, and it had been over a day since she fell. She had not dared to sleep. The hunter cried out when he saw her, and came quickly and without smiles. He bound her leg with sticks and cloth, and she did not fight him. He picked her up, and carried her by stages to a place she thought was his den. "I don't know what he will do," she said to the moon, "but I think it will be alright."

 

He nursed her like a pack-mate all winter, and she lay in his bed until she could stand. At first he would not sleep there with her, but he soon realised that she wanted him there, and at night she was held close as she had not been since her pack had banished her. He spoke to her, as they ate in the mornings, or after he returned from hunting in the evenings, or in their bed at night, and she began to understand him, and to talk back, but she did not forget her own tongue. "Though he is human," she said to the moon, "he shares his den as if he were pack."

In the spring, he took her to the woods, and taught her to hunt with trap and knife and bow. When they returned to the house at night, he taught her to cook. As her grasp of his tongue grew stronger, he took her to meet other humans, hunters and traders, and taught her how to trade with them for cheese and grain and eggs. "Though he is human," she said to the moon, "he shares his food as if he were pack."

In the summer, he kissed her, and she kissed him in return. He embraced her, and she embraced him in return. He loved her, and she loved him in return. "Though he is human," she said to the moon, "he is pack, and he is my mate."

 

When their first child was born, she crooned to the baby as her den-mother had once crooned to her. The hunter was annoyed, then angry, and scolded her for treating their children like cubs. "I am what I am," she said to her mate, "and if I change, it is by my choice alone. Do not speak so to me again." She ran to the woods, and stayed there for a night and a day before she returned. "He loves me," she said to the moon, "but he does not love the wolf in me."

When their second child was young, she snarled at the children that teased him. The hunter was fearful, then angry, and scolded her for treating children like wolves. "I am what I am," she said to her mate, "and if I change, it is by my choice alone. Do not speak so to me; I will not stand for it again." She ran to the woods, and stayed there for a night and a day before she returned. "He loves me," she said to the moon, "but he hates the wolf in me."

When their third child died of sickness, she howled her grief. The hunter was sorrowful, then angry, and turned his grief upon her, and scolded her for mourning like a wolf instead of a woman. She ran to the woods, and did not come back. "He says he loves me," she said to the moon, "but he hates what I am."

 

She ran to the woods, and made herself a den. She lined it with blankets, and hunted for her food with trap and bow. "I was cast out of my first den," she said to the moon, "and now I have left my home. It is better to grieve here than grieve there."

When the blankets were too thin to keep her warm, she lined her den with fur. "I was cast out by my pack," she said to the moon, "and now I have left my family. It is better to grieve lonely without them than to be lonely with them."

When her arrows were gone, she set aside her bow, and hunted with the blade called Claw. "I was hated by wolves," she said to the moon, "and now I am hated by my husband. It is better to be a wolf alone than a woman unloved."

 

That night she dreamt of her den-mother in the full moon's light, and when she woke, she could smell the grief, heavy in her den. When she left it, she could smell the woods as never before, and she hunted her prey without traps. "Thank you," she said to the moon.

The next night, she dreamt of her pack in the full moon's light, and when she woke, her teeth were sharp in her mouth. When she found prey that day, she killed it without a blade. "Thank you," she said to the moon.

The third night, she dreamt of a lone wolf, under the moon, and she knew it was herself. When she woke, she had claws of her own, and the form of her once-pack-mates, and a fur coat that kept her war despite the morning chill. She hunted without traps or blades that day, and ran her prey to ground. "Thank you," she said to the moon.

 

Once, her daughter came to the woods, crying out for her, but when she approached, the girl screamed and fled. "If my daughter fears this form," she said to the moon, "then I cannot love it." When next she woke, she had neither tail nor fur.

Her son came to the woods, crying out for her, but when she smiled at him, he screamed and fled. "If my son fears my fangs," she said to the moon, "then I cannot love them." When next she woke, her teeth were blunt again.

Her husband came to the woods, calling out for her, and when he saw her, he did not run. "I was wrong," he said. "You are who you are: wolf and woman both. You were when I met you, and you are today. I won't stop you when you wish to go to the woods," he promised, "but we miss you. Please come home?"

 

She lived in the house with her husband and her children, without fangs, or fur, or claws. But she spoke to the moon in the language of wolves, and when the night was lit by moonshine, she hunted the woods in the form of a wolf.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I really love storytelling, and fairy-tales and legends and mythology. So when the thought came into my head to write a Kipling-esque story of the first werewolf, I kept writing it. I'm actually pretty pleased with where this fits into the story chronology - chapters 1-7 are the first major time block; chapter 8 is going to be at least a few weeks down the track. If you liked it, I'll keep writing fairy-tales for the gaps between time-skips. Let me know if there's something you'd like me to write a fairy-tale about.
> 
> Your comments and kudos are always inspiring - I look forward to hearing your thoughts.


End file.
